Hypothetical; following the Events of the early 3060s and the jihad the conditions and pressures drive the extant Clans to begin building Capital/sub-capital ships. Present your case for what your Clan would build (Type and quantity) and why. These are not whole new massive fleets (in most cases); more like a vaguely realistic resurgence of Clan Black Naval capability (Bring those Naval Stars back up to strength! Whatever that is for a Naval Star). The primary threat is other Clans, but as of 3085; in a post-jihad context in terms of tech and other threats. Spheroid warship fleets will remain in their canon dilapidated state, with limited exceptions.

Any Clan can be represented and assume *some* production plant and capacity is available, but there is no time to develop anything new; production has to start ASAP, so any designs must be off-the-shelf with minimal modifications. Any design the Clan in question would have or might have access to is permissible (all the way back to TAS Dreadnaught if you want). But they must be off the shelf as much as possible.

Changes are limited to cargo and bays, but may not include any additional huge repair bays. Dropcollars may be reduced, but only added at the cost of capital weapons. No modifications to KF, maneuver drives or LF batteries. Secondary weapons may should be modified (at least to Clan spec) and crew may be tweaked, but addition of Sub-Cap weapons should be limited.

No changes are preferable, but not essential; small things can be changed as the ships are built.

Production *can* start as early as 3067, but will mainly not get under way until after the Jihad; because of various external pressures and other demands on industry. Starting earlier should come with some pretty good explanations. The program will continue until 3100. After 3095, you could present a more extensively modified Block II version for later (limited) production. As of 3098-3099, a totally new design could be on the way, but will not be complete or only available as a one-off or prototype by 3100 for the purposes of this hypothetical. Modification of in-service hulls may begin as of 3090 for new or different roles. So if you are the Bears and you want to complete conversion of those Leviathans to Battleships (or did they do that?); this can take place starting in 3090. If you are the Sharks; you can return your Potemkins to their non-factory configuration if you wish, or convert more factory ships (but please have a reason to share for either).

Any concurrent cannon production of warships or pocket warships is considered to be ongoing (you are stuck with whatever was on the lines 3067-3085); BUT! if your clan has a major warship project in the works during this period; consider it a brake on your own ideas. One or two small-medium ships will *limit* how big, how fast and how many you can build. A Major project underway in cannon will delay anything you want to do until it is finished (When does that last Leviathan come online for the Bears, for instance?). All current cannon projects in this time period will be completed; not cancelled.

Pocket warships are permitted, but *must* be based off a design available to the Clan in question as of 3067-3085.

But your Clan got knocked off during this time period?...Say they didn't? But figure their capacity to produce and field warships and pocket warships is going to be severely, but not wholly reduced.

If you feel your or another Clan's (Hypothetical) production capacity should be reduced or limited; please explain. So, if you think the Blood Spirits, if they even were going to have the capacity to build warships in this time period, should have a total capacity limited to 0.8 megatons over 15 years, with nothing bigger than 200k during this period, lay it out for us. The golden rule is that everyone gets *something* from this.

Defend what you think could be built; how much and how soon, given an at least a limited warship production capacity if your Clan has none to speak of during this time-frame, or very little. If your Clan already has a great deal of such capacity, assume to increase it by 20-50% approximately over time by 3100.

Feel free to speculate what this sort of a trend would do for inter-clan relations, but presume the Innersphere will, for the most part remain unaware of such developments, with the exception of the activities of the Nova Cats and Ghost Bears, whose activity will be known to a greater or lesser extent. Any resources required for this are available either locally or can be made locally with a little hard work by 3100.

Thanks for your time, I hope we all have fun!

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Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

These, in the day when heaven was falling, Their shoulders held the sky suspended;The hour when earth's foundations fled, They stood, and earth's foundations stay;Followed their mercenary calling, What God abandoned, these defended,And took their wages, and are dead. And saved the sum of things for pay.

I'm having a little bit of a tough time following exactly what you are getting at, so I'm gonna wing it a little bit.

Clan in question: Clan Snow Raven

The goal of the Ravens would be different than what you set out, primarily due to the fact that they exist quite a ways away from the other clans. They would intend to build a navy that would allow them to dominate both of their neighbors, the other clans would be tertiary considerations - with pirates being secondary, regardless of how weak most pirate navies could be. To succeed in these goals, well, with the restrictions on the IS navy, and the limited sizes of the current navies of the other clans, they have quite a bit of time before anybody could get anywhere near threatening even half their fleet.

With that in mind, I'll make it a bit more interesting and suggest that the DC and FS intend on restarting their warship production.

Keeping with those two issues, I'll modify the WoR slightly so that a few more Snow Raven scientist caste and other civilians make it to the Alliance. This and material issues are likely heavily involved in what kept the Ravens back so heavily during the Republic era.

So in the standard timeline the first jumpships started rolling out of Quatre Belle in 3081, it's probably going to be 3085 before warship production will be ready to begin. With your suggestion for speeding things up a little bit, I'll pull that back to 3080.

The design of the fleet would be intended to streamline the fleet quite a bit, eventually moving the old SLDF ships to a ready-reserve. The primary combat fleets would include the original Leviathan (which I imagine to be somewhere between the Leviathan II and Leviathan III) partnered with a carrier - the DC and FS border fleets will probably have Conquerors while the "QRF" fleet would use the Thera - add a pair of heavy cruisers, and fill out the fleet with 6 escorts. In addition to this a series of Patrol Fleets would be intended for use, these would be built around Yorks and an escort. More escorts would be commissioned to provide defenses to the Potemkin support fleet.

In summary of everything they would be looking at: 2 Border Fleets (1 Leviathan-0, 1 Conqueror, 2 Heavy Cruisers, 6 Escorts), 1 Quick Reaction Fleet (1 Leviathan, 1 Thera, 2 Heavy Cruisers, 6 Escorts), 5 Patrol Fleets (1 York, 1 Escort), 1 Support Fleet (5 Potemkin, 5 Escorts). This ends up totaling 50 total warships, only 8 of which are in existence at the start of the project (and one of these is likely to go through a small and quick refit to bring it to clan specs).

The Leviathans, based on their size, probably won't start getting built until Quatre Belle is sufficiently built up enough to support their construction, which means they may not start production of them until ~3090. At an estimated 10 years to build the first one and 5 years for each of two and three (averaging things out a bit), this portion of the fleet is unlikely to be operable until 3110.

The Thera would require some fairly minor overhauls, switching Inner Sphere tech with clan tech weapons and removing a few aerospace fighter bays to add ~2600 tons to the cargo.

The Conquerors wouldn't require much changes. But the new Heavy Cruisers could easily be built around a reinforced Conqueror hull, having them being nearly a block II type design will cut down on the actual design time and production of these may start as early as 3090 as well. Only 6 of these are expected to be needed and assuming constant production all six could be finished around 3105. I'll call these Subjugator-class Heavy Cruisers.

The Yorks would pretty much be ready right out the gate, and the 5 to be built could be finished before the Leviathans or Subjugators even begin production. Eventually the Yorks would return to the yard for a mild refit, increasing the armor a small degree, particularly on the sides. These, as well as the old fleet would work as a stop-gap until the intended fleet starts coming into being.

The escorts, on the other hand, would start off as Fredasas, quickly building the 5 escorts to the Yorks before redesigning them to be slightly more effective and larger (250k tons) - but essentially being an entirely new class. The first 5 would likely end up as solo raiders after the new class started rolling out of assembly in numbers. 28 of the new class would be required to completely fill up the escort role throughout the navy and assuming the first one rolls out in 3100, the small size and large number of these ships means that a second production slip being tasked for their production is likely, and the last one could roll out before 3120. I think I'll call these the Crossbow-class (unless there's already a warship class called that). These ships will be intended to be primarily anti-ASF -SC, and -DS ships, while most of the others primarily focus on DS and WS.

The buildup of such a navy is unlikely to have a serious effect on the other clans, the Ravens are simply too far away for them to be a significant threat most of the time. But the new ships and black IIs of existing designs may increase trade with the Ravens for some of those designs. Looking at the other clans, they may each build upwards of 20-30 ships, mostly in order to face down the other local 3 clans. The Diamond Sharks/Sea Foxes might see a good number of Potemkins built, or new ships built along similar parameters such as Leviathan Is to increase their space borne manufacturing and transportable assets, add in a number of corvette or destroyer sized escorts and they'd probably be good.

The neighboring DC and FS on the other hand, will have to have their heads deep in the sands for them not to notice such a massive build up, especially after about 3100, when the first Leviathan-0 comes on line. It's likely to provoke a naval catch-up race of some sort, though they both have fairly large amounts of PWS production, with the DC edging out the FS in that regard.

Now, I'll admit, this is a LOT of warship production, but the Ravens do like their warships, and if they have the resources to do so, they're probably going to build them.

Hrm I'd say the Ravens in this case don't need more huge battleships mainly due to their shortage of trained personnel. Unless what they are doing is phasing out/trading off their older SLDF era ships to other Clans and replacing them with the new builds. The Leviathan III has a large crew compliment before you take into effect her ASF compliment and any attached dropships making them massive manpower sinks.

Also they are going to be resource hogs to build as you'll need to build a yard to take them and then start from there. I'd say re-activate the cruisers whilst keeping the BB's mothballed. The Conqueror programme and new escort warships sounds reasonable, they can be used to replace the simply inadequate Vincents and their ilk and any Sov Soy's in the Clans service as without a decent refit they are little more than overgunned and sloooooooooow destroyers.

Once this has been done, then you can start thinking about replacing the older large ships, either sell them off or simply scrap them or retain them for training purposes. But getting a strong core of anti-fighter/dropship/PWS elements is needed. Replace the weakest ships first whilst working on the industry to built larger ships. Whilst a resource sink it will boost the econimy. Training the crews and manning them will then be the next biggest issue. But if the Ravens managed to get more people out of the Homeworlds before things went on there then that MIGHT help but still the big problem is having enough trained personnel.

Hrm I'd say the Ravens in this case don't need more huge battleships mainly due to their shortage of trained personnel. Unless what they are doing is phasing out/trading off their older SLDF era ships to other Clans and replacing them with the new builds. The Leviathan III has a large crew compliment before you take into effect her ASF compliment and any attached dropships making them massive manpower sinks.

Also they are going to be resource hogs to build as you'll need to build a yard to take them and then start from there. I'd say re-activate the cruisers whilst keeping the BB's mothballed. The Conqueror programme and new escort warships sounds reasonable, they can be used to replace the simply inadequate Vincents and their ilk and any Sov Soy's in the Clans service as without a decent refit they are little more than overgunned and sloooooooooow destroyers.

I mostly agree, part of my assumptions on making this work include at least 1/3rd of their last convoy making it out of the homeworlds (that one with ~100 jumpships in it that got almost totally wiped out by the Vipers, iirc). And yes, they'd be trading out their older ships, not necessarily to other clans but dropping them into mothballs, or shifted into training ships.

The Leviathan-0s I'm envisioning are similar in armament to Leviathan IIIs but with half as many docking collars, and probably minus a few weapons (insignificant tonnage-wise). The three things together should make personnel possible, but still pushing it.

But i'd still say that a Leviathan III/O is basically too much to ask, especially with the rest of their fleet. I think the Raven's have a Texas as their remaining big capital ship and thats 862 crew sans ASF and dropships whilst a Leviathan III has 1215 sans the 50 fighters and 20(!) dropships so she'll probably have a crew of over 2000 with ease.

Remember in the universe whilst something like a McKenna is basically a Star Destroyer, the Leviathan series are Super Star Destroyers, obscenely expensive to run, maintain and man. The Bears could do it because they are a Camper Clan, one who has a grasp of logistics and the industrial capacity to support them. The Ravens would need to built that infrastructure from the ground up and then begin construction and you can expect bottlenecks in resources, electronics and manpower due to them all being not that plentiful in Alliance space.

Do we have a list anywhere of what ships the Ravens have so we can look at what to replace etc?

Assuming that the Sharkfoxes still trade away their Nightlord and I belive a Lola for 4 of the Raven's Potemkin's (if I recall or was it all of them) for conversion into Arcships then I'd probably retire/trade the Sov Soy first and replace her with a new build cruiser or another Conqueror. Once the next ships ready on the slips, off goes the Aegis.

What's needed though is the picket/heavy escort design you mentioned. Hell if they didn't want to build a new design, repeat build Liberator's and Conqueror's.

I also wonder what would happen should the Ravens spend time refitting their existing big ships with more automation or computer control? When the Clans refitted the old Essex II ships with the Athena-3 computer they were able to run the old SLDF destroyers on a 25-person skeleton crew.

It's been what? A century since the Essex II refits? Similar fleet-wide refits may allow the Ravens to spend their resources on making the most out of their existing fleet and available manpower.

Logged

Look, dude, when you are a real mechwarrior you don't need to get all dressed up in cooling suits and cool helmets to work on your mech. You just strip down to your 1980s panties and crop top vest and start wrenchin' it.Yen Lo Wang = David Lo Pan

I also wonder what would happen should the Ravens spend time refitting their existing big ships with more automation or computer control? When the Clans refitted the old Essex II ships with the Athena-3 computer they were able to run the old SLDF destroyers on a 25-person skeleton crew.

It's been what? A century since the Essex II refits? Similar fleet-wide refits may allow the Ravens to spend their resources on making the most out of their existing fleet and available manpower.

Ahh but that would require the Clan's to have a functioning brain and be able to learn from the past :p

"Behold our newest vessel!""She's great! Where's the AMS?""We don't need them.""But..we do.""Explain.""Well look at the Amaris Civil War and Pentagon Civil war, how many ships were lost to nuclear attack.""Thousands.""And what about attacks from Dropships and aerospace fighters.""Oh I included those in the figures above.""Indeed, so point defences are needed, we don't need the cargo capacity to loose a super liner in with room to spare so how about we trim that fat back a bit, and beef up the short ranged defences, also there's this awesome automation system that will radically cut down on crew sizes.""We don't need them. Those losses were an abberation.""An abberation.""Yes.""Thousands of ships, and it was an abberation.""Yep.""Over 10 years.""Uh-huh...""O-kay....."

You pretty much nailed it. Not certain where the Ravens got a Thera from though? Good story there I bet.

As for their nieghbours; figure 50/50. The FS drinking ALL the Koolaid they can get from the Republic on the warship issue; they are more concerned about the damage a renewed war in the IS could do with more warships and the damage building them might do to the fragile post-jihad economy. The DCMS is different in this hypothetical; they try to drive rebuilding their economy with high-profile projects, including new and refit warships; once again torn between embracing a new destiny of reform and honouring their traditional heritage.

In this hypothetical; they change stream on the Yamato (Musashi?) once again and remove the factory equipment and relaunch it as a heavy battleship to counter the Bear's Leviathan(s).

The the Ravens would still have some very good reason to rebuild their Navy and retain their superiority. Maybe in their Clan-Ness, they see this as a path to a more meaningful Ilclan-hood; occupying the same place, strategically that the TH once did and coming to lead the Galaxy by means of massive technological and military might. Who needs Terra if you can take everyone else's fleet simultaneously? And if they don't like it; Enter the eschatological plotting to wipe out everyone's space-faring capacity and then waltz-in and pick up the pieces.

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Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

These, in the day when heaven was falling, Their shoulders held the sky suspended;The hour when earth's foundations fled, They stood, and earth's foundations stay;Followed their mercenary calling, What God abandoned, these defended,And took their wages, and are dead. And saved the sum of things for pay.

You pretty much nailed it. Not certain where the Ravens got a Thera from though? Good story there I bet.

Glad I got it right.

The Thera was captured during the drive towards Terra when the DCMS, GBD, and CSR assaulted Dieron. The Ravens managed to capture her there, the description of events is typical of the Jihad occurrences in that it's an in-universe account as if done through ship's logs or something similar. Jihad Hot Spots: Terra is where the event is shown.

Assuming that the Ravens managed to RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! with more people in their last convoys and that the trade's gone ahead with the Sharkfoxes what i'd do is this.

Offer to trade the Sovietsky Soyuz and Vincent to the Dominion. In return they give you resources and assistance in building an orbital yard and or slip that is capable of taking large capital ships as well as slips to construct them. This could take up to 4 - 5 years for a large cruiser scale yard.

This can be used to kickstart the Raven's economy as to build a shipbuilding industry you need ground and orbital factories as well as an expanded resource extraction programme and this means asteroid mining. You'd also be getting any facilities you managed to grab from the Homeworlds online. Assuming they managed to bring a small shipyard with them as well or two they could then begin designing the Crossbow class DD.

Once the primary yard is complete begin immediate work on a Conqueror type cruiser to replace the Sov Soy in one of the slips whilst bringing in other ships for a quick and dirty upgrade programme to add AMS to them. Cheap, cheerful and quick.

Once the Crossbow design is confirmed, start production with offers of trades of the design to the Dominion and Foxes in return for materials or other assets (ASF's, weapons that can't be produced in Alliance space etc). At 250k tonnes its 'small' and presumably cheap on resources vs larger older designs and could be produced at smaller yards without disrupting the main slip.

Lets say they start construction on two hulls at the same time at two yards, with 2.5 years for construction and 1 for fitting out/trials. Once the first two are complete, put them with a Conqueror and have them patrol as a group. Individual warships are vulnerable, history and recent action has shown that and the Crossbow's a close escort and needs a big ships guns against a large threat. The Conqueror's ASF compliment also keep them safe from all but the heaviest ASF attacks.

Have the Nightlord and Thera operate as a pair and have them show the flag along with the other Conqueror's whilst the Camerons, Whirlwinds and Aegis are put into mothballs due to their crew demands. See if the Bears are willing..sorry the Dominion, is willing to trade on the Aesir class and perhaps either trade for completed hulls or the design itself. Don't really bother with the CV version, go for the escort, perhaps one where SCL's replace the missiles of the Dominion design.

Another big thing needed is that the Ravens should not force segregation between their people and those they are 'allied' with. Instead work with them, incorperate and expand their industrial facilities, share tech with them, don't be distant overlords but partners.

Once the main slip is online, go for Conquerors, once another's complete, get rid of the Aegis whilst possibly looking at plans for a modern destroyer replacement or a direct combat capable Conqueror type ship that sacrifices its fighter compliment for enhanced anti-warship weaponry, perhaps going back towards the original Kimagure type with their energy heavy weapons mix and this is whilst you're producing Crossbows for yourself and export.

You could also carry out design programmes for a battlecruiser type ship to replace the Cameron class ships as well as keeping the yards busy. The big part is setting it all up though.

This can be used to kickstart the Raven's economy as to build a shipbuilding industry you need ground and orbital factories as well as an expanded resource extraction programme and this means asteroid mining. You'd also be getting any facilities you managed to grab from the Homeworlds online. Assuming they managed to bring a small shipyard with them as well or two they could then begin designing the Crossbow class DD.

If you build it they don't have to come. An easy example of this at the moment is the Chinese ghost cities. Who are the mined resources for? Who are the ships for? Right now the Chinese are primed to blow the bottom out of the bulk carrier market with over production. The US did it in 1918, not to mention what their own destroyer and cruiser programs did to their own navy at the same time. The Raven Alliance is a edge of the world periphery nation. There is no market in useful range. The Houses either have their own JumpShip production or access to closer allies. No one in the Alliance needs more transport capability. Ultimately expanding Quatre Belle beyond maintaining the fleet in 3090 becomes a vanity project.

Besides, who is your target for all this naval action? Every ship you build that you don't need is a victory for your enemies. If you are trying to build against the Combine you are crazy. I strongly suggest a gander at p4 of Objectives: Draconis Combine. Schuyler is at 100%. Dover is between 50% and 100% depending upon facility. Galtor is at 100%. Midway is at 30% but intact. In contrast Quatre Belle can't even build a JumpShip. It is a dark secret but a suprising amount of Combine WarShip infrastructure made it through the Jihad intact. Give the Combine a reason to build WarShips and they will build the Ravens into the dirt. Both nations are gutted in 3090, but the Ravens are far smaller and worse off.

So as a small power facing off against a giant the Ravens have to adopt small power tactics. Leverage their surviving ships, perhaps with refits. They are not getting new ones in a hurry as they can't man the ones they have now. They get cached for a reason. Small platforms like DropShips come into play because they are cheap and effective. The Gunboat wasnt an accident.'

Conquerors and Liberators aren't great ships. Just saying.

Dominion plans. Slow drum beat of ever evolving Leviathans. Really four or five are all you need to have the whole Dominion within two jumps with two in refit. Build Odysseys.Build Aesirs and Vanirs.Aquire a Noruff replacement.Build Muels and Aqueducts.Build OlympusBuild HuntersBuild QR 243 HPG Relay Satellites

That is your navy right there. Eyes, comms, mobility, and supply. Notice how that takes up a lot more than the pointy bit.

Dominion plans. Slow drum beat of ever evolving Leviathans. Really four or five are all you need to have the whole Dominion within two jumps with two in refit. Build Odysseys.Build Aesirs and Vanirs.Aquire a Noruff replacement.Build Muels and Aqueducts.Build OlympusBuild HuntersBuild QR 243 HPG Relay Satellites

That is your navy right there. Eyes, comms, mobility, and supply. Notice how that takes up a lot more than the pointy bit.

THIS.

I wondered a LOT about THIS; the Leviathan; how much does it represent the final word in warships in fact or image to the Clans? how capable is it of independent operations? Is it too many eggs in one basket? How viable is a "heavy" navy like this?

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Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

These, in the day when heaven was falling, Their shoulders held the sky suspended;The hour when earth's foundations fled, They stood, and earth's foundations stay;Followed their mercenary calling, What God abandoned, these defended,And took their wages, and are dead. And saved the sum of things for pay.

I'd echo what Jellico said for the Dominion , with upgrade the Hunters or develop a small Drstroyer/Corvette like the Fox to augment/replace them.

In addition Id still request a Heavy Cruiser analog to augment the Leviathan. Something to patrol and support them like the Ursa Major.

Four to five Leviathans, four Heavy cruisers, ~8 Corvettes, and all that other stuff. If we didn't get involved beating the Nova Cats half to death and worked out the kinks with the Rasalhague Republic sooner, it's possible we could have done my plan: Definetly achieved Jellicos plan by 3150

Full disclosure...I am not a clan expert, which is why I created this thread; i wanted some people energized by the Clans to talk about what they think might happen, based on a "What if..." i am playing with.

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Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

These, in the day when heaven was falling, Their shoulders held the sky suspended;The hour when earth's foundations fled, They stood, and earth's foundations stay;Followed their mercenary calling, What God abandoned, these defended,And took their wages, and are dead. And saved the sum of things for pay.

Full disclosure...I am not a clan expert, which is why I created this thread; i wanted some people energized by the Clans to talk about what they think might happen, based on a "What if..." i am playing with.

In that case, consider mine to be a Snow Raven Khan's wet dream.

Sticking as close to canon as possible, the Ravens would only build ships to maintain their preeminent position as the naval clan among the clans. Yes, naval power is important enough to them that most khans would bankrupt the clan in order to keep their place - it would take a serious realignment of their priorities to allow them to fall from that position and identity.

As for the rest of the clans, none of them consider naval power to be particularly important. They consider it nice, but would much rather focus on the forces that can take and keep planets: their ground toumans. The only real reason to build more warships at this point is to break through orbital and aerospace defenses to put forces on the ground - the Leviathan III is an example of this, if it jumps into a system it pretty much says "this system is now the Dominion's, it's now just a matter of time." On defense they are less useful, with the idea of attacking with a force equal to +1 of the warship's strength, or distributing the attacking forces in a manner to make sure enough make it through the space portion to succeed in the assault - a warship bombarding a planet it's supposed to be defending means it has already lost.

I know, it's a boring answer, but it's what ends up playing out in canon, and probably would even if they made it back to the Inner Sphere with greater infrastructure and drank the hatorade instead of the kool-aid. Even if the Great Houses restarted a warship building program, the clans are unlikely to try to compete against them.

I'd echo what Jellico said for the Dominion , with upgrade the Hunters or develop a small Drstroyer/Corvette like the Fox to augment/replace them.

In addition Id still request a Heavy Cruiser analog to augment the Leviathan. Something to patrol and support them like the Ursa Major.

Four to five Leviathans, four Heavy cruisers, ~8 Corvettes, and all that other stuff. If we didn't get involved beating the Nova Cats half to death and worked out the kinks with the Rasalhague Republic sooner, it's possible we could have done my plan: Definetly achieved Jellicos plan by 3150

You have to think in terms of role.Eg what does a Hunter do? It uses its small emergence signal to enter solar systems. It then either observes or deploys an observer like a QR 243 and gets out. What does extra thrust of a corvette add to the role? The big weight issues for a Hunter are the HPG and docking collar with a question mark over the LF battery. A replacement corvette has to be smaller and cheaper with the same capabilities to be justified. It is not a combat or typical transport unit.

Consider a heavy cruiser. The Hegemony decided they weren't worth the effort once they figured out McKennas. The Dominion has a proven battleship with the infrastructure in place. For the foreseeable future a single Leviathan is an instant win, even with reduced air wings. They basically don't need support. Supply is an issue but only outside the Dominion.

It is not about production capacity. It is about production rate. Rasalhague was built from scratch in about 8 years. Technically speaking in the post Jihad era the Dominion doesn't need any more Leviathans. But you slow down and establish a 10-12 year construction drum beat to maintain institutional knowledge and skills and keep the infrastructure maintained. This is not about building a huge fleet in a few years but instead maintaining a sustainable fleet.

It is not about production capacity. It is about production rate. Rasalhague was built from scratch in about 8 years. Technically speaking in the post Jihad era the Dominion doesn't need any more Leviathans. But you slow down and establish a 10-12 year construction drum beat to maintain institutional knowledge and skills and keep the infrastructure maintained. This is not about building a huge fleet in a few years but instead maintaining a sustainable fleet.

In that case I would suggest something along the lines of a Nightlord with say 10 Collars, Max Armor, and Dump the Mech Bays for ASF Bays.

I mean it is the Dominion, shouldn't be too hard to come up with another Yard, or even have the Ravens build the ships or the yard. The Ravens have to have 1.5 MT capacity slips, More than one to unmothball their flet and keep it working. Do a deal, trade a Galaxy or two for Production Capacity, or Mech Production Capacity for Naval Production Capacity. They are historically allies.

It is not about production capacity. It is about production rate. Rasalhague was built from scratch in about 8 years. Technically speaking in the post Jihad era the Dominion doesn't need any more Leviathans. But you slow down and establish a 10-12 year construction drum beat to maintain institutional knowledge and skills and keep the infrastructure maintained. This is not about building a huge fleet in a few years but instead maintaining a sustainable fleet.

It is quite interesting that the Vipers did build the Leviathan Prime Perigard Zalman in just 5 years. In absolute secrecy.

3065 the huge raid by the Vipers at the Raven world of Lum, wherein they captured a part of the Lum Naval facilities and blueprints of the original Leviathan design.3070 launching of the ship.

The Viper`s Masters ship yard , the secret yard where in the Leviathan Prime was constructed, was assembled shortly after the Lum assault.

IMHO this speaks volumes about the possible industrial capacities of the Homeworlds.

After the WoR we have been told that there is one large naval facility at the Homeworlds: Kirin Naval yards.While not capable of producing new warships for another decade in 3085, this yard has been used for slowly repairing the existing warships of all Homeclans. Furthermore the yards have been expanded with new slips for building new jumpships and a new dropship facility.

The Adders have the Priori yards (but damaged) and a new massive has being constructing at the Hoard system (using the remains of Vipers Masters ship yard). At the moment (of 3085) the Adders can not build new warship or do have any left in their naval caches.

The Lions are reported to have a single repair line in their only naval station at Niles. Furthermore do they intend to reactivate the last two mothballed warships in the ex Horses naval caches.

IMHO even after vast devastation suffered in the WoR, the Homeclans do have a better base to rebuild their naval power than the Inner Sphere factions.

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Crush yah enumhees, see dem drivun befor you, and hear de lamuntatuns of de veemon!

Any thoughts on what the remaining Spheroid Clans (Wolves, Jade Falcons, Horses...WiE?) would do in such a situation?

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Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

These, in the day when heaven was falling, Their shoulders held the sky suspended;The hour when earth's foundations fled, They stood, and earth's foundations stay;Followed their mercenary calling, What God abandoned, these defended,And took their wages, and are dead. And saved the sum of things for pay.